Part 18 (1/2)
It was not very much of all this that Warrigal managed to convey to her mate, as they stared out through the grey mist at these strange creatures, but Finn was profoundly and resentfully impressed by what he did gather from her. The shuddering way in which she wriggled her shoulders and shook her bushy coat before turning into the den for rest after their long play in the moonlight, told Finn a good deal, and it was information which he never forgot. It did not seem fitting to the great Wolfhound that his brave, lissom mate should be moved to precisely that shuddering kind of shoulder movement by the sight of any living thing, and, now, before following her into the den, he stepped well forward to the edge of the flat rock and barked fierce defiance in the direction of old Tasman and his redoubtable son. Lupus dropped his burden in sheer amazement, and father and son both faced round in Finn's direction, and glared at him across the intervening ravine. It was a fine picture they saw through the ghostly, misty grey half-light, which already was getting too strong for Tasman's eyes, over which the nict.i.tating membrane was being drawn nervously to and fro as a mark of irritation.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Finn was standing royally erect.]
Finn was standing, royally erect, at the extreme edge of his flat table of rock, from which the side of the gully sloped precipitately. His tail curved grandly out behind him, carried high, like his ma.s.sive head. That head was more than fourteen inches long, and when, as now, its jaws were parted to the expression of anger and defiance, and all its wealth of brows and beard were bristling, like the hair of the grandly curving neck behind it, and of the ma.s.sive shoulders, thirty-six inches above the ground, which supported that neck, the sight of it was awe-inspiring, and a far more formidable picture than any dingo in the world could possibly present. Tasman and Lupus glared at this picture for fully two minutes, while themselves emitting a continuous snarling growl of singular, concentrated intensity and ferocity. This savage snarl was not the least among their weapons of offence and defence. Its ferocity was very cowing in effect, and had before now gone more than half-way towards deciding a combat.
It introduced something not unlike paralysis into the muscles and limbs of the lesser creatures of the bush when they heard it; in hunting, it might almost be said to have played the part of a first blow, and a deadly one at that. On this occasion, it merely served to add wrath, and fierceness, and volume to the roar of Finn's deep bay.
As the light in the east strengthened, old Tasman's eyes blinked furiously, and his snarl died down to a savagely irritable grunt, as he turned again to the mountain. Lupus bent his head, still snarling, to pick up his heavy kill, and together the two trailed off up the mountain side to their den, full of angry bitterness.
They had not eaten since the small hours of the previous day, and both were anxious to reach the twilit shelter of their stony mountain den, where they would feed before sleeping, among the whitened mouldering bones that told of six long years of hunting and lords.h.i.+p, bones which probably included those of Lupus's own dam. No creature of that range other than themselves had ever seen the inside of this den and lived. No man had ever set his foot there, for the climbing of Mount Desolation was a thankless task for all save such as Tasman and Lupus, who liked its naked ruggedness and its commanding inaccessibility, high above the loftiest of the caves inhabited by other wild folk of the countryside.
Barking fiercely at intervals, Finn watched the savage lords of Mount Desolation ascending, till their forms were lost among the crevices and boulders of the hillside, and then, with a final, far-reaching roar, he turned and entered the den, where Warrigal sat waiting for him, and softly growling a response to his war-cries.
This defiance of the admitted lords of the range was not altogether without its ground of alarm for Warrigal; its utter recklessness made the skin over her shoulders twitch, but it was something to have a mate who could dare so much, even in ignorance. Long after Finn had closed his eyes in sleep, Warrigal lay watching him, with a queer light of pride and admiring devotion in her wild yellow eyes.
The afternoon was well advanced when Finn and Warrigal finally sallied forth from their den in quest of food, though in between short sleeps they had lounged about in the vicinity of the den several times during the morning, and Finn had accustomed himself to the bearings of his new home, and taken in the general lie of the land thereabouts. Now, before they crossed the patch of starveling bush which skirted the foot of their particular ridge, they were approached by Black-tip and two friends of his, who were also preparing for the evening hunt. Warrigal growled warningly as the three dingoes approached, but it seemed that Black-tip had spread abroad news of the coming of the Wolfhound in such a manner as to disarm hostility. It was with the most exaggerated respectfulness that the dingoes circled, sniffing, about Finn's legs, their bushy tails carried deferentially near the ground.
Seeing the friendliness of their intentions, Finn wagged his tail at them, whereat they all leaped from him in sudden alarm as though he had snapped. Finn's jaws parted in amus.e.m.e.nt, and his great tail continued to wag, while he gave friendly greeting through his nostrils, and made it quite clear that he entertained no hostile feeling towards his mate's kindred.
After this the dingoes took heart of grace, and there was a general all-round sniffing which occupied fully ten minutes. Finn stood quite still, his magnificent body erect and stretched to its full length. Occasionally he lowered his head condescendingly to take a sniff at one or other of the dingoes, who were employed in gravely circling about him, as though to familiarize themselves with every aspect of his anatomy, with eyes and noses all busy. During this time Warrigal sat a little to one side, her face wearing an elaborately a.s.sumed expression of aloofness, of lofty unconsciousness, and of some disdain. Finally, the whole five of them trotted off into the bush, and then it was noticeable that Warrigal clung closely to Finn's near side. If any small accident of the trail caused a change in the position of the dingoes, Finn instantly dropped back a pace or two, and a quick look from him was sufficient to send the straying dingo back to his place on the Wolfhound's off side. There was no talk about it; but from the beginning it was clearly understood, first, that Finn was absolutely master there, and, secondly, that place on his near side was strictly reserved for his mate, and for his mate only; that no creature might approach her except through him. The manner in which Finn's will in this matter was recognized and respected was very striking indeed; it meant much, for, from the point of view of the three dingoes, Warrigal appeared at that time in the light of an exceedingly desirable mate, and one for whose favour the three of them would a.s.suredly have fought to the last gasp that night but for the dominating presence of the great Wolfhound.
Finn appeared to lead the hunting party, but its real leader that evening was Warrigal, who had taken note on the previous day of the exact whereabouts of a big mother kangaroo. She now desired two things: a good supper and an opportunity of displaying before the three dingoes the fighting prowess of her lord. Black-tip had had his lesson, as various open wounds on his body then testified, but it was as well that his friends should see something of Finn's might for themselves, apart from the information they had clearly received. That was how Warrigal thought of it, and she knew a good deal about mother kangaroos as well as dingoes. She knew, for instance, that they were more feared by dingoes than the ”old men”
of their species, and that, even with the a.s.sistance of his two friends and herself, Black-tip would not have thought of attacking such prey while there were lesser creatures in plenty to be hunted.
In due course Warrigal winded the mother kangaroo, and conveyed instant warning to Finn and the others by a sudden checking of her pace. Silent as wraiths between the shadowy tree-trunks then, Finn and the four dingoes stalked their prey, describing a considerable circle in order to approach from good cover. To Warrigal's keen disappointment, they found as they topped a little scrub-covered ridge that the mother kangaroo was feeding with a mob of seven, under the guidance of a big, red old-man. Then she conceived the bold plan of ”cutting out” the mother kangaroo from the mob, and trusting to Finn to pull her down. This plan she conveyed to her fellow-hunters by means of that telepathic method of communication which is as yet little comprehended by men-folk. One quick look and thrust of her muzzle asked Finn to play his independent part, and another, flung with apparent carelessness across her right shoulder, bade the three dingoes follow her in the work of cutting out.
It was a careful, silent stalk until the hunters were within ten yards of the quarry, and then with a terrifying yowl of triumph, a living rope of dingoes--four of them, nose to tail--was flung between the big mother kangaroo and the rest of the mob. The red old-man gave one panic-smitten look round his flock, and then they were off like the wind, in big twenty-foot bounds. But the mother could not bring herself to leap in their direction by reason of the yowling streak of snapping dingoes which had flung itself between them. She sprang off at a tangent and, as she made her seventh or eighth bound, terror filled her heart almost to bursting, as a roaring grey cloud swept upon her from her right quarter, and she felt the burning thrust of Finn's fangs in her neck. She sat up valiantly to fight for her life and the young life in her pouch, and her left hind-leg, with its chisel claws, sawed the air like a pump-handle. The dingoes knew that it would be death, for one or two of them, at all events, to face those out-thrust chisels. They surrounded the big beast in a snarling, yowling circle, and gnashed their white fangs together with a view to establis.h.i.+ng the paralysis of terror. But they did not advance as yet. Finn slipped once, when he tried to take fresh hold, and in that instant the kangaroo slashed him deeply in the groin. But the wound was her own death warrant, for it filled the Wolfhound with fighting rage, and in another instant there was a broken neck between his mighty jaws and warm blood was running over the red-brown fur of the kangaroo, as her body fell sideways, with Finn upon it.
The three other dingoes approached the kill with Warrigal, but she snarled at them, and a swift turn of Finn's head told them to beware. In the end Warrigal settled down to make a meal at one side of the kangaroo's hind-quarters, Finn took the other side, and the three dingoes were given their will of the fore part. There was more than enough for all, and though, when they left the kill to the lesser carnivora of that quarter, Finn carried a good meal with him between his jaws, it was not that he needed it for himself, but that he wished to place it in the den at Warrigal's disposal; a little attention which earned for him various marks of his mate's cordial approval. She was extremely pleased to have this evidence of Finn's forethoughtfulness as a bread-winner. Instinct told her the value and importance of this quality in a mate. And while she carefully dressed the wound in her lord's groin that night, Black-tip and his friends, with much chop-licking, spread abroad the story of their glorious hunting and of Finn's might as a killer.
They vowed that a more terrible fighter and a greater master than Lupus, or than his even more terrible sire, whom few of them had seen, had come to Mount Desolation, and old dingoes shook their grey heads, feeling that they lived in strange and troublous times.
But as for Lupus, he was ranging the trails at that moment on an empty stomach in savage quest of no other than this same stranger who had dared to defy him, and challenge his. .h.i.therto unquestioned mastery over the dingoes and lesser wild folk of that range.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER XXVII
SINGLE COMBAT
Even while he hunted, the irritating thought of the creature who had barked defiantly at him remained with Lupus, and was not softened by the fact that he missed two kills and failed to find other game. As a fact, he was in no real need of killing, for he had fed during the afternoon on the remains of the wallaby he had dragged up the hill early that morning. This was probably why he missed two kills; when empty it was rare indeed for him to miss.
And, now, with irritation added to the anger of his recollection of the Wolfhound, he happened by pure chance upon the warm trail of Warrigal and the others who had accompanied Finn that night. This led him to the remains of the mother kangaroo, where he disturbed some lesser creatures who were supping at their ease. Lupus had no mind to leave bones with good fresh meat on them, and when he turned away again on Finn's trail, the unfamiliar scent of which raised the stiff bristles on his back till he looked like a hyaena, there was nothing much left for the ants or the flesh-eating rats and mice of the bush.
Finn's home trail was still fresh, and Lupus followed it easily, growling to himself as he noted its friendly proximity to the trails he knew well, of Black-tip and Warrigal and the rest. Lupus told himself these dingoes needed a lesson, and should have it. He licked his chops, then, over a recollection of sundry whiffs and glimpses which had interested him of late in Warrigal, and as his nose dropped low over her trail on the near side of Finn's, it was borne in upon Lupus that it would be well for him to have a mate, and that Warrigal would be a pleasing occupant of that post. The stranger must be removed, once and for all. Lupus growled low in his throat. Black-tip and his friends must be cautioned severely.
And then Warrigal should receive high honours; high honours and great favour. So Lupus pieced the matter out in his mind while loping heavily along Finn's trail; while among the starveling trees near the mountain's foot, Black-tip and his friends discussed the new-comer's prowess; while in the den on the first spur Finn lay dozing under the admiring eyes of his mate, who did not greatly care for sleep at night. Regarded as a fighting animal, the thing which really formed the keynote of Lupus's character was the fact that he had never met a creature he could not overcome. He had never tasted defeat, unless, conceivably, in his young days, from old Tasman. It did not occur to him that any creature could face him in serious combat and survive.
Before Lupus touched the first loose stone of the trail leading up the hill to Warrigal's den, the people of the scrub below were all aware of his pa.s.sage, and Black-tip, with seven other dingoes who did not happen to be away hunting, were following up the same trail, in fan-shaped formation, and at a respectful distance behind the master of the range. Half-way up the rugged side of the spur, his unbeaten insolence betrayed Lupus into what the wild folk considered an unsportsmanlike and stupid mistake. He paused for a moment, and bellowed forth a threatening and peremptory announcement of his coming in the form of a hoa.r.s.e, grating howl of challenge which could have been heard a mile away. Then he proceeded on his upward way slowly, because he was fully fed, carelessly, because he had never known defeat, but with determination, because he was bent upon ridding the range of one who had flung defiance at him across the gully, and because, the more he thought of it, and recalled various small matters of recent experience and connected with the trail he then followed, the more ardent became his desire to possess Warrigal for a mate.
Warrigal's friendly warning to Finn was not needed. In the same instant that Lupus's hoa.r.s.e cry fell upon his ears he was awake and alert, and perfectly conscious as to the source of the cry. He knew that it came from the great wolf-dingo, whose pa.s.sage he had challenged in the dawning of that day. He recognized the voice, and read clearly enough the meaning of the cry. He knew that this was a more considerable enemy than any he had faced as yet, and there was time in the moment of his waking for regret to flash through his mind that the challenge should have come now, while his whole body was scarred with unhealed wounds, and his left thigh was stiff from the punis.h.i.+ng slash of the kangaroo's mailed foot. In the next moment he was outside the mouth of the den, his deep, fierce bark rending the silence of the night. The eight dingoes who followed in Lupus's trail heard the bark, and glanced one at another in meaning comment thereon. Never was a leader of men or beasts more cordially hated than Lupus. There was not a dingo who could call his leaders.h.i.+p into question; even the young and daring members of the pack who pretended to scoff at the traditional awe in which Tasman was held, admitted the tyrannical masters.h.i.+p of Lupus as something ever-present and unavoidable; but that by no manner of means lessened their cordial hatred of the fierce half-breed, with his ma.s.sive neck and shoulders that fangs seemed powerless to hurt, his jaws which were as swift as they were mighty to rend, and his claws which were as terrible as those of an old-man kangaroo, and more deadly in action because he had four sets of them. Black-tip experienced a generous sensation of sympathy and pity for Finn, and so did the two friends of his who had fed that night upon good fresh kangaroo flesh. But they, like all the others, were keen to see the coming fight, and--to act accordingly. The question of what was to become of Warrigal had occurred with interest to each one of them, for she was eminently desirable just then to all her kind.